Roger Goodell Says NFL Seriously Considering Playoff Expansion

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NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell says adding two more wild-card teams is under “serious consideration,” but didn’t say when the league would be eyeing a potential expansion to its playoff format.

“Can you make it better, can you make those races even more competitive?” Goodell said during a Q&A event Tuesday in Manhattan, according to ESPN. “That’s compelling.”

“It’s something that the competition committee looked at last year and thinks there are some real benefits from a competitive standpoint,” Goodell said. “They’re going to study some aspects of that because when would those games occur and one team would get a bye in each conference and you’d have six games on the weekend. So would you have three on Saturday, and three on Sunday? Or do you get one on Friday and two on Saturday and two on Sunday and one on Monday? I think those are the kinds of things we want to evaluate.”

Goodell spoke on a number of other topics during the hour-long session:

— On the Feb. 2 Super Bowl At MetLife Stadium: “I think this is obviously innovative and it’s something new, but it’s also unique because it’s New York.”

— Will other cold-weather cities get the same chance as NY/NJ? “Every city can’t host a Super Bowl just because of the sheer enormity of this event. And it’s not just a football game. We have a week full of events, we probably have well over 150,000 coming in to the New York region for this event. Will we look at other Super Bowls in cold-weather sites? I think we’ll wait and make that evaluation later.”

— On having teams in London and Los Angeles: “I think it’s possible if we continue to have success in London that we would have a franchise there. … I don’t know which will be first (London or LA) and I’m not sure I care. I’d like to see if we can be successful in both ultimately.”

— On whether the league is ready for a player to come out: “Yes. There may be (gay players), I don’t know, but the answer to that is yes.”